December 11, 2013

Top dissertation prize awarded to engineering graduate student

The Council of University Transportation Centers has selected Ranjit Godavarthy, a December 2012 doctoral graduate in civil engineering at Kansas State University, to receive its Wootan Outstanding Dissertation Award in recognition of his dissertation prepared as part of his doctoral studies.

The dissertation, “Network and design concepts for accommodating large trucks at roundabouts,” was completed while Godavarthy was a student at K-State under the direction of Gene Russell, professor emeritus of civil engineering. Other committee members included Professors Sunanda Dissanayake, civil engineering, and Margaret Rys, industrial engineering.

Related research for the paper was funded in part through the University Transportation Center in the civil engineering department. The prestigious award recognizes Godavarthy’s scholarship as the best among submissions from nearly 60 other universities in the U.S. Department of Transportation University Transportation Center program.

Godavarthy will receive the award and a $2,000 stipend at the Council of University Transportation Centers annual awards banquet in Washington, D.C., Jan. 11, 2014.

More than 300 people, including federal and state transportation officials, and university professors and transportation directors, are expected to attend.

While completing his M.S.and Ph.D. studies at K-State, Godavarthy also won numerous poster competitions at transportation conferences, received the 2010 Thomas J. Sebrum Student Paper Award for “making the most significant contribution to transportation and/or traffic engineering,” and served as president of the student chapter of the Institute of Transportation Engineers.

He is currently an associate research fellow in the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute at the North Dakota State University.